Chapter 13: 1995: Occupy Till I Come

The next prayer campaign of note was held on June 4, 1995 and called “Occupy Till I Come.” This particular prayer campaign had been revealed to me in 1985, but it was not fulfilled until ten years later. Its purpose was for the overcomers to begin to receive the divine authority over Babylon that had been promised to us years earlier. To understand the purpose of the prayer campaign, we must begin on May 13, 1985 with this Word from the Lord to me:

“You need to secure all the gates. But this will not be, for the Church has so decided. Nonetheless, I will intervene, and you shall occupy them long enough to prevent utter disaster . . . .

“I have people all over the world who are with you in spirit. Some will never even hear of you (that is, this prayer group and the prayer campaign), but I know My own, and all are united in Me. One only needs to be in Me to be united in this body.”

“What shall we call the prayer campaign?”

“Occupy Till I Come.”

Two days later on May 15, 1985 I prayed for further revela-tion about this prayer campaign. At this point, God spoke this:

“You are to occupy these gates in My name until I come to set up My Kingdom in your midst. As at Mount Sinai on the first Pentecost, when the mount was filled with fire and smoke, and the people were fearful and quaked at the sight, so also have I come this day.

“So shall I send you out with power from on high. For I have called and commissioned you even this day to be My hands and My feet in the earth until I come again to receive you unto Myself.”

A final Word was given on May 20, 1985 as follows:

“When you see this power come upon you, know that I have indeed sent you on the greater work, and others shall follow in your footsteps to be My hands and feet to all the earth.”

At that time in my life, I was still a part of the Net of Prayer. In submitting this Word to the leadership of the Net of Prayer, they were led to call for a prayer campaign to be held on June 5, 1985 called “Nail and Hammer.” While this partially fulfilled the above Word, it was only a stop-gap measure, designed to “prevent utter disaster” in view of the Church’s refusal in 1985 to heed His Word and declare the Jubilee in 1986.

Though we did not know it at the time, the “Nail and Hammer” campaign bought us another ten years, during which time God began to separate the barley overcomers from the wheat believers and to train the overcomers to do the work that the Church under Pentecost had refused to do. We now know this ten-year time period as the “Hezekiah Factor,” which is explained thoroughly in chapters 14 and 15 of Secrets of Time.

And so in actuality, the prayer campaign called “Occupy Till I Come” remained unfulfilled for ten years until the Feast of Pentecost, June 4, 1995. By that time, of course, the “New Net of Prayer” had been established, and the Pentecostal Age had closed (1993). God was now in the process of transferring authority to the overcomers, to give this “barley” company decision-making authority to say Amen to the plan of God for the earth.

And so we were led to call for a prayer campaign on June 4, 1995 called “Occupy Till I Come.” The timing of this campaign was not only Pentecost that year, but it was also precisely 490 days after “His Fullness” prayer campaign (Jan. 30, 1994). In fact, it was also linked by a 490-day period to the 8^th day of Tabernacles in 1996.

The prayer that I was led to compose for “Occupy Till I Come,” which would bring us into a unity of prayer focus was as follows:

“Father, you have promised that the seed of Abraham would possess the gates of our enemies. We stand upon your Word this day and thank you that this Word is now fulfilled in our ears. We bear witness according to your will that you have opened the Gates to your overcomers and have seated them in heavenly places. We enter your Gates with thanksgiving in our hearts, and into your courts with praise. This is the generation of them that seek Thee, that seek Thy face, O God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, O ye Gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.

“Father, fill us with your Spirit, that we may have the wisdom to always do only what we see you do and decree only what you decree. Our first declaration is this: Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Thank-you for answering our prayers.”

We recognized by this prayer campaign that God was calling us and training us in His ways to judge the world. If we are to be priests of God in the age to come, we must learn how to judge with the mind of Christ. The priests were called to be the judges (Deut. 17:8-12; 21:5). This does not mean they must condemn the world, but judge it unto salvation as John 3:17 tells us,

{John 3:17} ¹⁷ For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world [krino, in the sense of condemning the world], but that the world should be saved through Him.

Judging and condemning are not the same thing. To judge simply means to apply the divine law to any case or question that may arise, whether in a court room or in private life. In the New Testament, the word “judge” generally comes from the Greek word krino, “to examine and discern; judge.” Any time we must discern right from wrong, we are judging. This is an all-inclusive word that may be either a guilty verdict or a declaration of innocence, whatever the truth may dictate.

To condemn means only to give a guilty verdict. The Greek word for “condemnation” as used in Romans 5:16, 18 and in 8:1 is katakrima. Paul says there is no guilty verdict for the believer who follows the leading of the Spirit, because the Spirit never leads him to commit sin. On another level, every believer has been imputed righteous, as Paul explains in Romans 4. Though we are yet sinners, God calls what is not as though it were (Rom. 4:17).

We are not really righteous, but God looks upon the believer as part of the body of Christ, who is perfect. It is a legal perfection, rather than actual. Hence, believers are not condemned in the long run, but it has been my experience that God does hold us accountable and brings us through times of difficulty when we are disobedient.

Righteous Judgment

As we prayed and sought the mind of God in this prayer campaign, we came to see that we had heretofore been afraid of being judges, lest we be judged (Matt. 7:1, 2). This was a healthy fear, insofar as it applied to the judgments of our carnal mind and will. But throughout our lives in the past, we have submitted to the judgments and disciplines of God, which, though grievous for the moment, ultimately worked for our good. We have constantly examined ourselves, in order to eat of that bread and drink of that cup worthily (1 Cor. 11:28). Paul says in 1 Cor. 11:31 and 32,

{1 Corinthians 11:31} ³¹ But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. {1 Corinthians 11:32} ³² But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world.

The whole idea behind self-judgment is to qualify us as judges who can render verdicts reflecting the mind of Christ, rather than our own carnal minds. In 1 Cor. 6:1-3 Paul scolds the Church for going before the secular judges to settle disputes, when they themselves ought to know how to judge all matters with the mind of Christ. He says:

{1 Corinthians 6:1} ¹ Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? {1 Corinthians 6:2} ² Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? {1 Corinthians 6:3} ³ Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, matters of this life?

In the past we studiously avoided acting as judges. But with this prayer campaign we learned that God is about to require us to be judges of the world. We do not feel worthy and are certainly not yet perfected. But we have come to the place where we no longer fear this responsibility either. Why? It is NOT because we are immune to being held to the same standard. In fact, for many years we have submitted ourselves to God’s standard and have judged ourselves by that standard—the Law as exemplified by the life of Jesus. We have welcomed God’s disciplines and judgments in our lives, for we know it means we are His sons and daughters (Heb. 12:6). We know that His chastisements work for our good.

Jesus said to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. I would want God to discipline me as a son, for I know that He does this as a loving Father, not as an impersonal King or Judge. When I was still a child, I feared God’s judgments, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But as I grew in Christ, my fear of God began to be replaced by Love, because perfect Love casts out all fear. In retrospect, I can see now that the judgments I used to fear are only fearful to those who do not know Him, His Love, and His Plan to restore all things. His judgments are restorative and corrective.

And so we found ourselves being called to occupy the gates of government in the earth, that we might have the authority to render His loving judgments in the earth. If we did not have the authority to render judgment upon sin, we would likewise have no authority to judge unto life and forgiveness.

The Responsibility of Judges

It is not the prime responsibility of a judge to dispense justice, but rather to find the truth and bring it to light. Without truth being brought to light, and without the sinner’s full confession taking responsibility for his deeds, there can be no appeal for mercy and grace. Without repentance, the sinner can only be judged according to the prescription of the law. Repentance opens up new avenues to the judge, as is evident in so many case studies in the Bible.

The first and foremost responsibility of a biblical judge is to know and judge by the mind of God, rather than by one’s human, carnal understanding. This cannot be done apart from sensing or hearing God’s voice and being led by the Holy Spirit. One must also know the ultimate purpose of God in dealing with sinners, otherwise the divine law is reduced to the level of sentencing sinners to what they deserve. But merciful correction and grace is the real mind of God, and every judge must understand this.

When Jesus was brought to trial in front of Caiaphas, He said little or nothing in order to fulfill Isaiah 53:7, “yet He opened not His mouth.” The accusers had a difficult time building a case against Him, so finally, Caiaphas invoked what we call “the anti-fifth amendment” in Matt. 26:63,

{Matthew 26:63} ⁶³ But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, “I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.” {Matthew 26:64} ⁶⁴ Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” {Matthew 26:65} ⁶⁵ Then the high priest tore his robes, saying, “He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy; {Matthew 26:66} ⁶⁶ what do you think?” They answered and said, “He is deserving of death!”

The high priest’s tactic here was to force Jesus to answer, and it worked, because it would have been unlawful for Him to remain silent after being adjured by God's name to speak. Deuteronomy 17:12 says,

{Deuteronomy 17:12} ¹² And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the LORD your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.

In other words, the judge can lawfully adjure (demand) that a witness or the accused tell the court the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Caiaphas, in this case, was making an appeal to the Supreme Court of Heaven and calling “the living God” as witness.

Jesus not only answered his immediate question, but gave him a complete answer. He told Caiaphas that He was going to fulfill Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13. This made it very clear that He did indeed claim to be the Messiah. The Messiah was to be seated at the right hand of Yahweh, as Psalm 110:1 says (literal translation):

{Psalm 110:1} ¹ Yahweh said unto my Adonai [David’s “Lord” being Jesus Christ], “Sit Thou at My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”

This was fulfilled at Jesus’ ascension, as Paul tells us in Col. 3:1, “where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” until all things have been put under His feet (1 Cor. 15:27, 28).

Secondly, Jesus claimed to be the Messiah who was to fulfill Daniel 7:13, where the prophet saw “one like the Son of Man (come) with the clouds of heaven,” to whom was given dominion over all nations and peoples.

And so we see from Jesus’ answer to Caiaphas that He respected this basic principle of divine law by answering with the whole truth as clearly as possible, with the intent that there could be no possibility of misunderstanding. The high priest believed this to be a blasphemous statement, tore his garments, and condemned him to death. All other charges were dropped, and no further witnesses were called.

This Biblical example shows us the respect Jesus had for this principle of divine law. He upheld it, knowing that we would one day invoke it in order that the Spirit of God would be poured out, and men would confess the whole truth and nothing but the truth.